Chasers (25 page)

17

The Cessna rolled to a stop on the tarmac, engine droning, landing lights blinking. The white side-panel door opened and two men stepped out and walked down the narrow steps, one of them hand-blocking the glare of the sun from his eyes. They stood on the tarmac and gave the immediate area a quick scan, both facing the wide-berth hangar, their jackets flapping in the cool breeze of a late-spring day.

“I told those fuckers not to be late, did I not?” one of the men said. “Or was it just me that heard that?”

“Relax, Junior,” the second man said. “We got plenty of time. Nobody checks out shit at these private airports. We could be dumping a line of bodies from out the back of the fuel tank, wouldn’t even get a second look. Besides all that, our crew has never once missed a delivery, and there’s no reason for you to give any thought that they will today.”

“I’ll relax all right, soon as all that cocaine is moved off my damn plane and into their damn truck,” Junior said. “Until then, I’m going to just stand here and fuckin’ worry like some sorry-ass skycap.”

“You’re a stress machine,” the other man said. “No wonder you need to pop all those pills all day. You worry worse than some soft-tit old lady.”

“Put a knife to your line of shit and cut it, Raul,” Junior said, pulling a thin cigar from his inside jacket pocket and holding it in his right hand, where it would add mileage to his anger meter. “Like you’re not standing there with bubbles coming out of your tight ass. If these fuckers are a no-show, we have to make good. And that’s bad, cousin. That’s top-of-the-tier bad.”

They turned when they heard the truck engine and watched as a heavy-duty four-wheeled full-load came out of the hangar with a roar and headed straight for where they were standing. “They may be a few ticks late,” Raul said, “but they are for sure hauling ass like they looking to make up for the lost minutes.”

“Get away from the plane,” Junior said, his senses on high-tension alert, eyes darting from the oncoming truck to the empty lounge to his right and up to the roof of the two-story building that housed the mini-terminal. “Get the fuck away from the plane now!” Junior grabbed Raul by the back of his jacket and the two skirted toward the double doors of the lounge, pulling out semiautomatics as they ran. They slammed open the doors and rushed into the lounge, diving in just as the truck rammed into the parked private jet, the loud explosion rocking the afternoon air and sending flames thick as tree stumps hurtling skyward, brick, glass, and rubber flying in all directions. A wave of brown smoke rushed through the lounge, now littered with debris, and covered the fallen bodies of Junior and Raul like a blanket. Sirens wailed in the distance as fire engines and an ambulance rushed to the site of the explosion.

Boomer, Dead-Eye, and Ash stood a half mile away, their backs against the warm side of an empty hangar, where an overhead awning shielded them from the sun’s glare. “It’s a little scary what you can learn working in the arson unit,” said Boomer, arms folded across his chest, eyes on the smoke and flames in the distance. “I might ask you for the recipe sometime down the road, if that’s good with you.”

“Wouldn’t take you long to figure it out, trust me,” Ash said. “It’s not rocket science, it only looks like it.”

“It still doesn’t explain how you got that truck to roll out of there like that,” Dead-Eye said, visibly impressed. “The bomb part, I get. You been around it long enough, you pick shit like that up. But you don’t learn how to jack a truck, kick the engine over, and have it move on down the road like it’s manned by a Formula One driver glued behind the wheel on the arson shift. That much I do know. That’s a class you take in a whole other school.”

“The name Earl Stanlislaw sound familiar?” Ash asked.

“Earl the Pearl,” Boomer said. “A mad bomber worked the city about four, maybe five years back. You the one nailed him?”

“Not directly, but I was part of the team,” Ash said. “And then I was assigned to study him, profile him for the department. To do it right, I had to get to know him a bit. I’d go up to Comstock on his visiting day each month, sit across the glass, and listen to him talk about bombs. He was mad, no doubt on that, but not exactly crazy. He might also have been a finger touch away from a genius, at least when it came to explosives and the best ways to use them. I read dozens of bomb books, just so I wouldn’t come off as a total moron when I started with my pop-quiz questions.”

“Did he show you any other tricks besides the truck one you just pulled off?” Dead-Eye asked.

“I’ve got one or two more picture cards palmed up my sleeve,” Ash said. “I’m a rookie next to Earl the Pearl, but I picked up enough to do some damage to the dealers. Nothing all that technical, but I learned how easy it is to blow shit up.”

“He’s the guy tore apart a downtown department store during a snowstorm,” Boomer said. “Or am I thinking of someone else?”

“No, that was Earl’s work,” Ash said. “It was one of his best jobs, for my money. He planted the device in a perfume display on the second floor, one of those pit stops where a lady gets a free whiff of some new smell. It was timed to go off when the bottle hit the halfway point—which, in this case, was around lunchtime.”

“Did he have a beef with the store?” Dead-Eye asked. “Or maybe with the perfume company?”

“That’s the madness of Earl,” Ash said, shaking her head. “He didn’t have a beef with anybody. He just liked to set off bombs and be there to see the end result. That’s where we part company. At least, I like to think we do. We only go after the ones who caused us some level of pain.”

“How did the drug dealers touch you?” Boomer said. “And I don’t need to know if you don’t feel like giving it a say. I just wondered, that’s all, and we seem to be on the subject.”

“They touch everyone, not just you or Dead-Eye or me,” Ash said. “Every arson fire that’s set in this city can be finger-traced back to drugs. It’s true now, and it was true back when I was a kid. They either do the torch jobs themselves or they farm them out to some kid eager to hook up with their crew. Any way you burn it, their torch prints are on every piece of soot in this town, and the poorer the neighborhood the truer that proves out. To tag along with the gas and the flames, you can add a long list of wasted innocent lives that went down in the smoke because of those heartless bastards. That’s why I went into the arson unit, and that’s why I’m here standing next to the two of you.”

“I wish we could get them all,” Boomer said to her, “but there’s always going to be a hundred of them to one of us. So it turns into a long night at a bowling alley. We just look to knock down as many pins as we can before the lights go off and they send us on our way.”

“This is the second haul of Angel’s we’ve hit in less than three days,” Ash said. “How soon you think it will be before he hits back?”

“Depends on how fast he figures out who it is that’s pulling at his drug chain,” Dead-Eye said. “If I had to guess it, I’d say no more than another day or two, four on the outside.”

“How will he get to the two-and-two?” Ash asked.

“He’s not top-tier because of his looks,” Boomer said. “He’s taken the years to set his domain up like a small country—complete with connections, legal and not. He’s got the money and the names to piece together who we are, and some of those names come to the table wearing a cop’s tin. We just need to be smart enough not to let him get close to where he can slice together
where
we are. If we can manage that, then we’ll make a dent.”

“And if we can’t?” Ash asked.

“Then we get tossed out with the wash,” Dead-Eye said. He began to walk away from the hangar, the plumes of brown smoke behind him thinning out and covering the length of the tarmac. “But he’s always been a cautious man, careful not to rush to a judgment on business matters. Right now, he’s still not sure who’s playing him: is it us or is it the G-Men? Until he’s sure, he’ll need to hold his hand.”

“Or even better for us if he gets the bug in his ear that the G-Men are fronting us the dough to run our operation,” Boomer said. “Then that’s an even bigger headache thrown his way.”

“We can’t beat either crew full-out, take them down head-on,” Dead-Eye said. “So we need help from their side. They work and play in a world without trust, and we have to use that to our advantage best we can.”

“Who’s fronting us the money for our operation?” Ash asked. “I saw enough carpenters and electricians in that burnt-out pizzeria the other day, I thought we were going condo. They can’t all be ex-cops out on a favor run.”

“More like a half dozen ex-cons tacking the hours on to some developer’s tab,” Boomer said, reaching the driver’s side of his car, which was parked behind the hangar. “Angel and the G-Men go down, let’s say. Somebody has to step into that void, fill the demand hole. Now, that’s one somebody who would look to help a group of somebodies like us.”

“That’s crossing a line, if nothing else,” Ash said, holding open a rear door. “You have to admit to that, at least.”

Boomer looked at Dead-Eye for a few moments and then turned to Ash. “We’ve never looked at any line,” he said. “We only saw who was standing on the other side of it and we went after them, both on the job and off. Far as I can see, there’s no other way to get it done.”

“There anything you
won’t
do?” Ash said. “To get what you want done?”

Boomer looked away from Ash and gazed at the smoke and flames down the tarmac at his back and shook his head. “Nothing that comes to mind,” he said. Then he got behind the wheel, kicked over the engine, and drove down the smoldering tarmac toward the rear exit.

18

Andy Victorino was walking down a side street in lower Manhattan when he saw the dark blue sedan turn the corner and come to a quick stop next to a fire hydrant. Buttercup was by his side, seemingly indifferent to her surroundings, her eyes glazed and droopy. Andy slowed his walk, watching the four men jump from the sedan and head his way, moving at a clip that was much too fast to fit such a quiet morning. They were well dressed and determined, weighed down by guns and the hungry look of up-and-comers eager to make that rush move on the crime ladder. Andy eased Buttercup closer to the curb, standing between a parked car and a dented meat truck, open back doors exposing rows of hanging hindquarters. The street was lined with storefronts and wholesale outlets, one of those downtown streets with a cobbled roadway that seemed locked and sealed from an era when pushcarts and peddlers sold their goods to an array of newly arrived immigrants. The soot-stained tenements directly above the stores had either been converted into office space for the shops beneath them or remained as rent-controlled housing for tenants who had lived there since birth.

The four men broke off into pairs. The two leading the charge toward Andy hit the curb and crossed over to the sidewalk on his right. The other two came down the center of the street, dodging the occasional passing truck or car, hands jammed inside the open flaps of their jackets.

“Ready when you are,” Andy said, looking down at the drowsy Buttercup and giving her a gentle tap on the head. “And if you get a flashback, remember, I’m the one that’s on your side.”

Buttercup moved away from Andy and walked down the center of the street with a slow and confident strut, like an old gunslinger ready for the next drawdown, heading directly for the two men in her path. Andy turned and jumped up into the meat truck and braced himself against the side of a 250-pound hindquarter, fresh drops of blood soiling the sawdust floor at his feet. He eased two .44s from the back of his tight blue jeans and checked his watch.

It was twenty minutes past six on a chilly Thursday morning in late April, and Andy Victorino, a forensic specialist with a deadly disease working its wretched madness through his young body, had not yet had his first cup of coffee.

The two men on the sidewalk were the first to pull their weapons and aim them up at the truck. They waited until they were within ten feet of the meat truck, gave a quick glance to the curious faces looking back out at them from inside the safety of the stores, and aimed their guns in Andy’s direction.

“Pull on that trigger and you’ll drop like a bad stock,” Dead-Eye said to them, locking the men in their place.

He was right above them, standing on a rusty fire escape, his feet spread and wedged against the thin red bars for support. From inside the truck, Andy whirled and turned to face the other two men. They were now frozen in place in the middle of the empty street, with Buttercup herding them as if they were lost sheep, her teeth exposed, a heavy and low growl coming from deep inside her throat. “Try not to look scared,” Andy shouted at them. “It turns her on, and then there’s no stopping her from ripping out the bones in your legs.”

At the other end of the street, Boomer walked out of a pork store and stepped in behind the two men. “There’s a diner just around the corner on Little West Twelfth,” he said to them. “We can all of us head over there, pocket our weapons, and sit and talk it out. Or we can play Cowboys and Indians out here in the morning light. It’s too early for me to make any decisions, so I’ll leave it to you and your friends. And while you’re tossing it around, add this in. There are two high-powered rifles with two very itchy fingers locked onto their triggers, aimed at each of your heads.”

“They sent four of us this time,” the oldest of the group said. He was a middle-aged man with a connect-the-dots face. “You waste us and next time they’ll send forty and wipe the streets with your fucking blood.”

“That may well be true,” Boomer said. “But what do you give a shit? You won’t be alive to hear the story.”

“What you got to say inside a diner can’t be said out here on the street?” he asked. “You hard up for eating company?”

“Hookers talk business on the street,” Boomer said. “Not me. And besides, Buttercup hasn’t had her first meal of the day yet. She doesn’t see a chow bowl real soon, she’s going to have to revert to Plan B. Which is to say you.”

The pockmarked man looked down at Buttercup, who stood inches away, blocking his path, thick white foam edging down the corners of her mouth. He turned to the man next to him and nodded. “There’s no need for all of us to go in,” he said. “How about we leave it to just you and me? Have everybody else take a chill pill and kick it back while we talk. Work for you?”

“It does only if you’re the one in the group carries the most weight with the Gonzalez boys,” Boomer said. “Otherwise, I’ll take a Pasadena on the meeting.”

“I’m the one you want,” he said.

“That leaves just one last thing for me to know, then,” Boomer said.

“What?”

“Eggs or pancakes?” Boomer asked.

Rev. Jim had made his way down from the tenement rooftop and stood next to Dead-Eye on the fire escape, each with a full-chamber weapon in hand, the early-morning sun drenching the now busy street two stories below them. “I have a funny feeling that you and me need to have ourselves a little chitchat,” Rev. Jim said. “And it does appear that we have a few minutes of kill time coming to us.”

Dead-Eye turned his back to the street and holstered his weapon. “That does seem to be the case,” he said. “But this might only be part one of the conversation. Once we’re done, you might have to move it on to the next badge in the line.”

“You got a name in mind?” Rev. Jim asked. “Or will just any old badge make the magic happen?”

“Sean Valentine,” Dead-Eye said, staring hard across the fire escape at Rev. Jim. “He’s a captain now, working out of the Plaza. Back in the day, two of you worked undercover decoy and saw some narc action to boot, were in steady tandem for about eight months, give or take.”

“I remember, though I’ve spent a lot of useless time trying to wash the taste out,” Rev. Jim said. “He was knee-deep in dirty deeds when we worked together. Doubt he has any reason to change course now that he’s down in headquarters. There any special request you want me to pass his way?”

“He’s on our tail, working for Angel through some highbrow middleman,” Dead-Eye said. “And the only link between us and him is you.”

“You think I feed him about the team?” Rev. Jim asked. “Is that what all your Dick Tracy bullshit is about?”

“It’s a starting point,” Dead-Eye said. “You seem out of sorts, especially this early in the game. That Q&A crap you cranked up at the dinner table the other night with Quincy was just one of the red flags.”

“Those questions needed to be asked,” Rev. Jim said. “There was a time you would have been the one asking them. But since you didn’t grab a bat and make a move toward home plate, it was left to me to do it.”

“Maybe so,” Dead-Eye said. “Or maybe that’s the kind of talk you reserve for a one-on-one, much like you and me are doing now. There was no need to call him out about it in front of the team.”

“What he has affects the
whole
team,” Rev. Jim said. “Not just me.”

“So does you having a history with a prime-time dirt badge,” Dead-Eye said. “I get some clear answers, then I can move forward with a clear head.”

“And if you don’t like what you hear?” Rev. Jim asked.

“I hope I don’t have to reach out that far,” Dead-Eye said. “You’re an important member of this team, and I want to keep it that way. But there’s too many high-calibers aimed at our heads as it is. We don’t need one at our backs, too.”

“I’m not dirty, Dead-Eye, and I never was,” Rev. Jim said. “And fuck you for thinking it. I worked in the same unit with Valentine, that part is true, but I stayed as clear away from his end of the water as he did from mine. I knew he took, and he knew I didn’t. That’s the plain and the simple of it all.”

“Did he know about you being hooked up with us the first time around?” Dead-Eye asked.

“He did if he read a newspaper or listened to the cop talk in the locker rooms,” Rev. Jim said. “We didn’t exactly succeed at keeping it on the low and down.”

“Which means he would figure you to be in the next card game as well,” Dead-Eye said. “And that makes you the hand he reaches out for when he feels a need.”

“Well, he hasn’t felt it yet or I would have been the first to hear,” Rev. Jim said. “Either way, it won’t do him much good, since him and me have nothing to share.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Rev.,” Dead-Eye said with a smile. “Off-the-charts wrong.”

“I just told you I’m not dirty, and that’s the last I want to hear of this shit,” Rev. Jim said, his anger reaching full-volume pitch. “You want me off this team, just say the fucking words and I’m gone like a ghost. I’m not here for an ego boost, but I’m not here to take a kick to the nuts, either. Especially from you.”

“I know you’re clean, that wasn’t my concern,” Dead-Eye said. “I just needed to make sure you were up for another go-around on the hard turf. Our little head-to-head here gave me the answer to that.”

“Good to know,” Rev. Jim said. “Now I can die with a smile on my face. You got anything else to throw at me or you through playing judge and jury for the day?”

“Just one more question—I mean, while we’re talking up here and all,” Dead-Eye said. “I mean, shit, Boomer never leaves a diner unless he’s had three cups of coffee and he’s old-lady slow drinking it.”

“Let me hear it, then,” Rev. Jim said. “But I warn you, if it goes to a place that makes me twitch, you and me are going to go at it right here and right now on this piece-of-shit fire escape.”

“Fair enough,” Dead-Eye said, stepping in closer to Rev. Jim. “Here it is, then. What if Valentine did reach out, and what if you acted as if you were interested? Not a quick yes, mind you. That might cause him to raise his antennas a bit. But a slow and easy dance that would lead him to think you’re open to the idea. You game for a little something along those lines?”

“If it has a sound purpose,” Rev. Jim said, “it’s not something I would toss a wad of spit on.”

“He’s sure to be driving up our asses, sooner than later,” Dead-Eye said. “We could slow him up a bit if we had a pair of hands on his steering wheel. Make him think he went and made himself a trustable friend from among our group. Give him a couple of head fakes on what we got working against the dealers.”

“That will only work once, twice maybe if I go in with the luck of a lotto winner,” Rev. Jim said. “If the goods don’t match the sales pitch, Valentine will bark louder than crazy old Buttercup.”

“You’ll give him some of the wine, just not a full glass,” Dead-Eye said. “Play it like I brought it to you here. Plans are made by only me and Boomer; rest of the group is kept out of the decision loop. You’re working under a cloud, batteries are low on your trust meter. Shit along those lines. He’s been there himself ever since he slapped on a tin, so you’ll be walking with a fellow traveler.”

“Might be good to get something back from him we could use,” Rev. Jim said. “If we’re going in this deep, let’s take it as far as it’ll go.”

“We can’t wire you up, he’ll go in looking for that,” Dead-Eye said. “But if he lets you decide on the meeting sites, then maybe we can set it up that way. I know a guy can drop a wire not even Clark Kent could see if he were staring right at it.”

“It’ll be harder if we end up with our meetings held outside,” Rev. Jim said. “Which is more than likely where he’ll want them. I’ll try and make sure if that’s the case we get together at night. Try and give your guy as much room to work as I can.”

“Us nailing Valentine is the second limb on the tree,” Dead-Eye said. “The top branch is making sure he doesn’t nail
us.
”

“You seem pretty confident he’ll make a reach-out for me,” Rev. Jim said. “That more of your gut, or do you have some intel to back up the words?”

“A skunk can take a three-hour shower,” Dead-Eye said. “But when he towels off he’s still a skunk. Connect the dots is all I did. He’s on Angel’s payroll, and he’s a cop. We’re out to fuck up Angel and we used to be cops. And the two of you shared a workspace. He’ll come looking to take you out on a date soon enough.”